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Fi'zi:k saddles factory tour

This is the main room in the factory where Fi'zi:k make their saddles. 500,000 of them each year

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Outside the Selle Royal factory in Vicenza, where Fi'zi:k saddles are made

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Every place of work needs a foosball table

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A peek inside the design room

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There's a Willy Wonka element to this room

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A carousel full of saddle boxes

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Rolls of Microtex. This is the stuff that F'iz:ik use to cover their saddles

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Entering the cutting room

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The shape that's used to stamp out an Antares cover

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The cutting machine. Don't put your hands in, please

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The cutting machine and operator

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And the cover itself after being cut

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The centre strips are also cut out

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Centre strips in various colours

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Some of the saddle covers are hand stitched, others are thermally welded

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The to-do box

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An Aliante cover post-stitching

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The underside of the stitched Aliante cover - very neat work

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The thermo welding process starts here. A worker thins the edges of the fabric where it will overlap

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A strip of glue with backing tape is then applied to the material

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The cover with glue strip

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Peeling the backing strip off

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The two halves are pressed together

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Voila - it now looks a lot more like a saddle cover

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A laser cuts thin slices out of the cover to give it that Arione look

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The perforated cover

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The factory floor

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Nicolo from Fi'zi:k shows us the foam backs that have already been put onto the carbon bases by a machine. We didn't see it in operation, though. Different saddles use foam that varies in softness

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Foam-backed bases ready to go. It takes a day for the glue to dry after the backs have been put on

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The saddle bodies get cleaned before the covers are put on, to ensure they're dust free

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A layer of glue is applied to the base and another to the cover. They are then put on a conveyer belt and left to dry for an hour and a half to allow the glue to absorb into the foam and fabric. Another layer of glue is then applied to the cover. Just like gluing on a tubular

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Two-by-two workers fit the covers onto the bases

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This pair fitted three covers in about the time it took to line up this shot

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The glued saddles are warmed up in an oven, to soften the Microtex

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This is used to protect the carbon Twinflex part of the saddle from the heat of the oven

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Making sure everything is glued on properly

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The glued saddles go back onto a conveyer belt

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Excess material needs to be trimmed

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It's done so very efficiently and quickly

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That's looking better

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Now it's time to glue on the carbon rails

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First, apply your glue

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Next, affix the rails. You'll need this machine

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Done - job's a good 'un

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This block is used to keep the rails aligned while the glue is still soft. It takes a day and a half to dry properly

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This pair of workers uses dentist's tools to clean off the excess glue

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Now the saddles get left to dry

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Carbon rails about to undergo quality control. Every single one of Fi'zi:k's carbon rails gets this treatment

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Stress testing the rails

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Checking to see whether it's okay

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If not, it will end up in one of these boxes

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Here are some Mobius rails used for the top end Arione 00. They don't have ends to glue, which cuts down a time-consuming step

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K:ium titanium and manganese rails

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The metal rails are also glued on but using more pressure

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Checking the alignment

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It's good

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Inserting the rails

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That's looking like a finished Arione

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The packaging begins

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Team edition saddle boxes ready for their products

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Preparing the boxes

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The sticker colour needs to match the saddle colour exactly

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This finished product is earmarked for Garmin pro David Millar

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This is the main room in the factory where Fi'zi:k make their saddles. 500,000 of them each year

Fi'zi:k are the biggest producers of racing saddles in the world, making a staggering 500,000 saddles each year in their factory in Bressanvido, in the northern Italian province of Vicenza.

What's even more impressive is that they do it without using much in the way of mass production machinery, preferring to rely on their modestly sized workforce of 40-70 people, mostly women and shared with parent company Selle Royal, to carry out the delicate task of creating high performance racing saddles. This ensures that quality and aesthetics are top notch, even if it does add to the prices.

Each saddle takes between 30 and 45 steps to make, from cutting the fabric to gluing on the rails and boxing. The entire process actually takes three days, due to the time required for the glue to cure. But Fi'zi:k's efficient and multiskilled workflow means they can produce up to 9,000 perches in that time. They definitely work fast, as we found out when BikeRadar toured their factory this week.

Fi'zi:k rotate their saddle production each day, so while today might be the Arione, tomorrow could be devoted to the Aliante or the Tundra. That's all dependent on demand and is carefully managed to keep efficiency high.

We followed the production of the Arione and Aliante saddles, which you can see in our image gallery on the right.